


With your hands dirty, and with your hands clean

by EllaStorm



Category: The Borgias (Showtime TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Brother/Sister Incest, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, all the good stuff basically, post "The Prince"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 19:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14503599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaStorm/pseuds/EllaStorm
Summary: Post 3x10. Lying on the bed, her skin bloody, her brother's lips on her neck, Lucrezia contemplates fate.





	With your hands dirty, and with your hands clean

**Author's Note:**

> I keep re-watching and re-watching and RE-WATCHING "The Borgias", and it's so damn good I want to cry sometimes. So this was going to happen sooner or later, wasn't it?
> 
> (PS: I did not care much for "The Borgia Apocalypse"; so, as all of you lovely people who inspired me with your fics have done, I decided to make my own canon.)

She was numb, lying on the bed. The wet cloth at her cheek, the familiar breath at her ear, the soft words whispered were all lost on her, blotted out by the overwhelming smell of blood that filled the room. She was afraid she might drown in it, in this feeling of feeling nothing.

It had been like this before, once, when her sweet, sweet Narcissus had died at the hands of Juan. Back then, a thirst for vengeance had quickly filled the emptiness inside her. But there was no vengeance to be served in this room, unless it was served to herself. Unless it was served to him that she loved more than the moon and the stars and the sun, and just as hopelessly, too.

A word soaked through the cocoon of blankness that surrounded her, a small but potent _Mine_ , followed by lips at her neck, and her hand, her red, red hand reached up to touch, out of instinct more than out of will, and found calloused fingers, their caress too soft for what they had done to the one who lay beside her on the bed just an hour ago.

“ _Cesare._ ” The name left her lips, cracked, damaged, and yet still so much like a prayer.

“My love,” he answered, the _Amen_ that followed the _Our Father_ in church _._ Inevitable. Maybe this was what this was. What it had been all along. Inevitable. A semblance of feeling returned to the palm of her hand that was still clutching at Cesare’s fingers, something like warmth. The thought that fate might have its hand at play was comforting, made all of this less horrifying, less cruel.

“Do you believe in destiny, brother?”

Cesare’s lips left her skin, but his hand kept contact with her fingers, holding them tight, as if he were afraid that her touch might slip away, and he would lose her forever. _How foolish to think you can lose me, brother, when I love you like my lungs love the air. They do not have a choice in the matter, and neither do I. I love you, or I die._

“The likeness of Fortuna is carved into my dagger,” Cesare retorted quietly. “I believe in fate. More, maybe, than I have ever believed in God, or our father.”

“So do you think that this…” She made a weak gesture with her hand, one that was meant to encompass the whole room. “Is the making of Fortuna?” It sounded almost bitter, but a questioning undertone was there to be found, and she hoped Cesare would pick up on it.

She needn’t have worried.

“It is our making, yours and mine, I am afraid” he gave back, something like apology in his voice. “And yet we might not be here, if not for our fate.”

“And what, brother, is our fate?” The words had a sadness to them, and Lucrezia realised that the numb feeling was leaving her chest now as well, making space for other emotions. Grief settled there, and a small inkling of acceptance for unchangeable things; similar to what she had felt when she had made her way to Cesare’s chambers late on her wedding night.

“I do not know, sis. But I know that, if we are damned by Fate and not by God, there is no one here to judge us. Only ourselves.”

Lucrezia’s eyes finally found Cesare’s, hovering above her face like a vision, and it struck her how blessed she was in all her damnation. There was nothing in his eyes but love and worry and longing; all viciousness, all jealousy gone. She knew cruelty would return to his gaze sooner or later: It would fall on the next man she chose. The next city he took. Their father. Never her, though. Never, ever her. The way he looked at her would always feel like something clean and true, no matter the taint on both their souls.

“Will you judge me, sister? Will you judge yourself?” Cesare’s voice was wavering, and Lucrezia realised he had been waiting for an answer to a question he had never asked.

She hesitated for a long moment.

“I would. In any other world, I would pass judgement upon us both and it would be harsh, brother. Harsh and righteous. But here I am, lying on this bed, a widow by both our hands, and I know that every word of judgement spoken would be a lie.” She lifted her hand to his cheek, caressing it, and Cesare leaned into the touch like he had been starving for it. Relief was colouring his features now, clear as day, and she saw that it had scared him, the thought of repulse and hate coming from her. _You should know that I cannot hate you, brother, unless I hate myself first. And I cannot hate myself, if you love me like this._

“So I will not, I _cannot_ judge. You, or me. Or us,” she said. It was an admission of defeat to whatever was left in her that still clung to the abstract notion of guilt Alfonso’s death had elicited. And it was a promise, too, one made completely without remorse. Cesare’s fingers danced over her temple, reverently, as he bowed down to kiss her; and in the moment his lips touched hers, all remnants of numbness drained from her body, and she knew she would return to who she was meant to be. Borgia, yes, but not only Borgia. Daughter. Mother. Woman. _His._

The opening of the bedroom door cut through their intimacy like a knife, followed by a small gasp. Lucrezia didn’t look who had entered, but Cesare’s kiss ended abruptly. His face disappeared from her vision, and his voice was like ice when he spoke:  
“No words. You will leave this room exactly how it is. Nobody is to come in here until I command you otherwise. You will prepare a bath for your Lady, and you will leave us alone. Is that understood?”

“I…I have hot water in the other room, my Lord. The bath can be ready in a minute,” sounded the meek, intimidated voice of a serving girl. She did not say who she had originally been warming the water for, but it was not a hard guess. Lucrezia turned her head to look at her deceased husband, waiting for numbness, or guilt, or remorse, to return to her at the view of his battered, bloodied corpse.

Cesare’s hand still on her shoulder, it didn’t.

_They call only my brother monstrous. They forget we are the same._

“All the better. Go,” Cesare gave back, and the door fell shut with a soft click.

His attention returned to Lucrezia, and he started undoing the laces of her sleeping gown with silent precision, until it fell away and she lay only in her shift. Then, without further ado, he picked her up, like that child who had just been married to a man she barely knew, like that girl who had lost her first love, like all the blood on her face and hands and soul didn’t matter to him, and carried her away, away from that which had once been Alfonso. Lucrezia clung to him, buried her face at his neck, breathed the familiar scent of his skin and wished that he could carry her further, even further, out of this house, out of Rome, to somewhere only they knew, where nobody would find them, like he had promised her all this time ago.

_Will you marry me? Yes. Yes, I will._

Eventually he did set her down, in another room, warmer than the bedroom, and Lucrezia opened her eyes to candle light and steam from a wooden tub.

“Leave,” her brother commanded the serving girl who had been pouring hot water into the bath, and she complied without a word, leaving them alone. A few weeks earlier Lucrezia might have wondered what this girl would tell her friends later, _my Lady bathes with her brother in attendance,_ but she was way beyond that point. All she needed now were Cesare’s eyes and his hands and his being with her in this room, away from blood and swords and poison.

He lifted her out of her sitting position to her feet, and she let it happen, let him take the sullied shift from her, let him lead her carefully into the tub, where the water instantly formed a warm shield around her body, divorcing her from the world outside, absorbing the dirt and the blood from her skin and her hair. When he started to pull his hand away, she didn‘t let him, held on.

“You must wash your hands, brother. There’s blood on them.”

Cesare’s eyes were deep, dark pools, but Lucrezia felt no fear holding his gaze, only comfort. Part of her understood him better now, like she had taken a step in his direction. _That step was the murder of one who loved you,_ a haughty voice in her head reminded her; but Lucrezia waved it away with a blink of her eye. This voice no longer commanded her.

“There will always be blood on my hands, sis,” Cesare replied, gently.

Lucrezia shook her head. “Then let me wash it away. Just this once.”

She kissed the back of his hand, then his palm, then each of his fingers; then she laced her wet, newly clean hand with his bloodied one and revelled in the view for a moment, her paleness against his dark complexion, skin and water and blood. _These hands kill as they love. Without measure._

Cesare let her go, and for a moment she was afraid that he might leave her, but she should have known better, because he was opening the buttons of his overgarments, then those of his undergarments, keeping his eyes on her all the while. A hot pull started dragging at her insides, when skin was revealed, one that only he knew how to unleash; and then he was naked before her, finally, lean and dark and glorious like a god of old, like Ares, perhaps, who had brought flames and destruction to mankind but loved Aphrodite all the same, loved her more, maybe, than he had hated everybody else.

When he sank into the water next to her, Lucrezia was already holding out her hand, and he touched it, kissed it, softly took her fingertips into his mouth and enveloped them in heat that made her head swim.

“Will you love me?” she asked, caressing his cheek and his hair, long and black and wet at the tips. “Can you love me after this?” How strange it was that this was the question that sent a pinprick of tears to her eyes. She could never be pure again, the way she had been before tonight, the way she had been when Cesare had loved her last, even though she wished she could be. For him.

He moved into her, aligned his body with hers, aligned his soul with hers, too, and spoke the next words quietly, a whisper into her mouth, his hands at the back of her head.

“I will love you with your hands dirty, and with your hands clean, and I will never stop, until the universe itself crumbles and falls to its knees. I am yours, my love. And you are mine.”

He kissed her, and Lucrezia answered him, hungrily, wholly, because what he felt, she felt.

Mine. Yours. _Always.._

**Author's Note:**

> For all fans of the European Canal+ series "Borgia": Yes, that part about Fortuna was a reference. Couldn't help myself.


End file.
